Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Understanding the Other: a dialogue-building lesson plan

This lesson, crafted by Lea Gabay, is designed
for a course aimed at fostering dialog building and intercultural communication
through language teaching between communities who are in conflict. This
particular lesson is centered on dialog between the Arab Muslim and Jewish
communities in France. Half of the participants are French of North African
descent from countries such as Algeria, Morocco, or Tunisia while the other
half consists of a mixture of French Sephardic Jews, Jews who are descendants
of Spain and Portugal, and Ashkenazic Jews, Jews who have origins from Eastern
Europe. There are eight participants in the class: six boys and two girls aged
between 13 and 14 years old; they have an upper-intermediate to advanced level
of English. This class is mostly oral communication-based with occasional focus
on lexis and pragmatics. It is held under the auspices of an organization
called Amitié judéo-musulmane (Jewish-Muslim Friendship) at a youth center in Seine-Saint
Denis, a suburb of Paris. The course takes place twice a week on Wednesday and
Sunday from 3 to 4:30pm and lasts three months.

Lea Gabay is a French American graduate student who is studying for a
Master's in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at
San Francisco State University in San Francisco, CA. She previously
taught English as a Foreign Language for several years in various
countries, particularly in Vietnam. She is passionate about interfaith
dialog building, social justice, women's rights, and plans to teach
adult literacy and English as a Foreign Language to refugee and
immigrant populations.